Slides from the NERI Post Budget Seminar by Dr Mary P Murphy, NUI Maynooth.

1. Advancing proofing in
the Irish Budgetary
Process
Dr Mary P. Murphy
Maynooth University
IHREC

2. Budget 2017 and advancing
proofing mechanisms

3. IHREC enabling and compliance powers 2016-18 Strategic Plan
–
5 goals: Leadership, powers and public duty , making rights and
equality real, advancing interculturalism

4. UN E/c.12 IRL/CO/3 Section 11
 UN ICESCR June 15th - Rights based budgetary governance processes
 Ensure that austerity measures are gradually phased out and the
effective protection of the rights under the Covenant is enhanced in
line with the progress achieved in the post-crisis economy recovery;
 Consider reviewing its tax regime, with a view to increasing its
revenues to restore the pre-crisis levels of public services and social
benefits, in a transparent and participatory manner; and
 Consider instituting human rights impact assessments in its policy-
making process, particularly relating to the Covenant rights
 ERA, EBC, EAPN, NWCI, COF ………………NEVIN, TASC …………

5. Parliamentary Budget Office
 OECD 2015
 Irish Parliamentary Budget Office to equip
parliamentarians to engage more effectively
on budgetary matters, including through
analysis of information of taxation,
expenditure and performance, as well as
policy costings ………
 Where this will sit institutionally …….. ….
Budget Scrutiny Committee, crucial
resource, must be adequate to the task…

6. Budget process reforms …
PfG May 2016
will develop the process of budget and policy proofing as a means of advancing equality,
reducing poverty and strengthening economic and social rights.
will ensure the institutional arrangements are in place to support equality and gender
proofing in the independent Fiscal and Budget Office and within key government
departments and to draw on the expertise of the IHREC to support the proofing process.
Budget 2017 the fiscal and budget committee will be tasked with looking at gender and
equality proofing budget submissions and proposals with independent expertise (including
the IHREC) to assist where necessary.”
Elsewhere ………………… Advance Social Impact Assessment In DPER

7. Nine grounds, (gender specific budget processes)
Socio economic status as ground
Different grounds – different data barriers, tactical and strategic
Add human rights traditions and processes

8. Away from fiscal space/expenditure
Maximising available resources & revenue as % of GDP

9. Budget 2017 projection

10. Making it happen …? Year plan
Ambition
Short term tactics & long term
strategies
Institutional reform – not overnight.
Pace that enables proofing
mechanism to be implemented in a
realistic fashion.
Incremental building towards
institutional capacity

11. Report of the Select Committee on Arrangements for Budgetary
Scrutiny 30 June 2016 p21
i. The Department of Finance and the Department of Public Expenditure
and Reform be requested to provide early briefing on development and
implementation of Government’s proofing of the budget-making process to
the Committee on Budgetary Oversight;
ii. Individual Ministers be asked to engage with their counterpart
committees in the early autumn in relation to progress made in the
proofing of any specific policies under development; and
iii. The Independent Parliamentary Budget Office liaise closely with the
Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission in relation to their respective
agendas and opportunities for exchange of information and learning, in the
human rights and equality area and generally

12. Oireachtas Committee on Budgetary Oversight
Report on Budget 2017
 Limited
 Welcome insistence that a broad and stable
tax base is necessary for sustainable budgeting
to advance economic and social development
 ‘Ireland has a good deal further to travel before
it has the structures and processes that match
the benchmarks set by other advanced
democratic states’.

13. Clear focus on parliametary budget
office and department capacity
 Establish a well-resourced and fully
functioning independent parliamentary
budget office with capacity to hold
government and departments to account on
equality and human rights budgeting
commitments.
 Focus now

14. Budget 2017 – did it advance?
 Focus not on budget day but budget process –
policy making process
 More information flow, TSG, sectoral
committees, budget scrutiny committee
 Half empty or half full – clear engagement
 Develop greater capacity to analyse equality
and distributional impacts of public services in
Social Impact Assessment (SIA), beginning …
 How far from overall ex-ante budgetary impacts
assessment with the budget?
 Childcare as example? Travellers, LPs,

15. Distributional analysis in budget
 More analyses aimed at integrating equality and distributional
considerations into the Budget process (Economic and Fiscal
Outlook section, Chapter 5 Budgetary Reform p 44).
 A full Social Impact Assessment (SIA) detailing the overall
budgetary impact will be published by the Department of Social
Protection in a timely manner after the Budget in order to inform the
debates on the Finance Bill and the Social Welfare Bill.
 Annex A distributional analysis of Budget 2017 measures on a
variety of household family types across a range of income levels
(focus on average effective tax rates not accounting of reliefs) .
 Annex B provides a broader examination of income tax and
progressivity issues (Gini analysis

16. Social Impact Assessment
(SIA) framework
 Add .. by exploring how SIA exercises might
be broadened in scope specifically with regard
to incorporating expenditure on public
services. Compare the distributional impact of
changes to types of public service spending
and the implications for household outcomes.
 IGEES SIA series of published papers to
supplement the micro-simulation exercise
undertaken at Budget time
 GMS/TCS examples (inadequate but baseline)

17. The master plan and examples
 Baseline position identifying
level of spend in a given policy
area, the key drivers of
expenditure and profiling those
impacted by the expenditure,
baseline will facilitate the
subsequent analysis
 GMS, TCS
 Labour Market Evaluation
 Health,
 Education,
 Childcare,
 Social housing
framework for future Social Impact
Assessments (“SIA”) which can be
used as a reference point when
examining who benefits or loses
from budgetary policy decisions

18. SIA The assessment can be quantitative, measuring the
change in incomes as a result of policy or qualitative,
offering a description of how policies affect households’
financial positions
Has the policy change resulted in quantifiable gain/loss to existing recipients?
Who has gained/lost the most/ least?
Has it altered the profile of the recipients? 
Has this resulted in a change to the key drivers of spend in this area?

19. In the meantime
 Establish a national proofing committee to
advance the institutional framework for
human rights and equality proofing, chaired
by the Chair of the Budget Oversight
Committee and with the IHREC, ESRI , Irish
Fiscal Advisory Council, NESC, CSO and
independent experts as members

20. Link with Section 42 – proofing
progress in department goals..
 Ensure all Departments, as part of their
Section 42 public sector duty to have regard
to equality and human rights, establish
human rights and equality statements that set
goals and establish issues, and link budget
expenditure to advancing and realising these
goals and address these issues.

21. Towards Budget 2018,
 The Ministers for Finance and Public
Expenditure and Reform should include a
human rights and equality statement and ex
ante distributional analysis in respective
budget statements
 Specific government departments, with
support from the IHREC, should, during
2017, participate in SIA and other proofing
demonstration models to pilot and test out
different approaches. Publish in Budget 2018,
CIS, Housing

22. IHREC work – ongoing
 Research Advisory Group, Intetrnationalk
liasion, growing internal capacity, developing
resources
 Meeting budget scrutiny committee
 Round table proofing experts
 Communicating with key departments
Taoiseach’s, Finance and DPER
 Advancing pilot(s) with expenditure dept
 Commission own revenue proofing exercise

23. Promoting public support for
proofing
 Briefing materials
 Current affairs articles and op eds
 Special edition of Administration – Ireland’s
public administration journal
 Meeting civil society, (NWCI, ERA, 22 Sept)
 EBC rebrand and opinion piece very welcome
 Funding NWCI, look at supporting civil society
 Ideas welcome!